Program duration: 01/06/2021 - 31/05/2024

AcToVax4NAM

Increased Access To Vaccination for Newly Arrived Migrants – AcToVax4NAM

Prolepsis Institute is the coordinator of the ActoVax4NAM project which is co funded by the European Union’s Health Program (2014-2020).

The European Vaccine Action Plan 2015–2020 proposes that all Member States in the Region pay special attention to migrants, international travelers and marginalized communities to ensure their eligibility and access to culturally competent immunization services and information and the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health proposes that solutions should include input from migrants and be specific to the diverse migrant populations.

The AcToVax4NAM project intends to improve vaccination access for Newly Arrived Migrants (NAM) making access conditions more equitable and guaranteed. The project targets Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPDs) that are part of the official vaccination programmes and will adopt a life course approach. AcToVax4ΝΑΜ will identify and find solutions for overcoming system barriers and address institutional or system based health literacy for the health and social care professionals who work with NAMs including non-medical personnel such as health mediators. The project is action oriented and will develop country specific plans to overcome system barriers, test solutions and different tools and will reinforce networking capacity and built health care system capacity for a health literate and culturally competent system that promotes active immunization of NAM. AcToVax4ΝΑΜ adopts a participatory and co creation approach by involving the target groups in all phases of the project to achieve widespread acceptance of the proposed solutions.

Covid-19 vaccination will be considered in all the project’s activities, within the logic of promoting equal access to relevant vaccination services for NAM.

Specific objectives:

  1. Identify solutions for overcoming system barriers, also addressing the impact of political and cultural environments in each of the consortium countries.
  1. Address institutional or system-based Vaccination Literacy (VL) for health and social care professionals who work with NAM, including non-medical personnel, such as health mediators.
  1. Develop country specific action-oriented flow charts to overcome system barriers.
  2. Pilot interventions and different tools.
  3. Reinforce networking capacity to address VL and ‘migrant-sensitivity’ of the health care system with respect to the immunization of NAM.

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Coordinator:

Prolepsis Institute, Greece

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Program Partners:

Istituto Superiore Di Sanita, (ISS), Italy

Universita Degli Studi Di Roma La Sapienza, (SAP), Italy

Fundacio Hospital Universitary Vall D’ Hebron, Spain

Center for Social Innovation, (CSI), Cyprus

Ministry of Health (MoHGR), Greece

Ethnomedical center (EMZ), Germany

Ministry for Health – Government of Malta (IDCU), Malta

National Institute of Public Health-National Institute of Hygiene, (NIPH-NIH), Poland

Fundatia Romtens, (ROMTENS), Romania

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Contact info:

Pania Karnaki, MA: p.karnaki@prolepsis.gr

Markos Psimitis: m.psimitis@prolepsis.gr

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Program website: www.accesstovaccination4nam.eu